Organizational Skills

Last night I felt like I wasn’t doing enough.

Most of the time, if I’m not working or studying, my wife and I are home watching TV: movies I collected, catching up with current episodes of shows or Netflix. Essentially, just lying about.

It used to be an accepted pastime. What’s happening is I’m uncomfortable sitting around doing nothing. I feel like the more I sit and just watch TV, there more time I am letting slip away from me.

It’s a strange feeling because it doesn’t have much to do with “If I don’t do something, I’ll go crazy”. It’s more dire than that. It’s a foreboding, mood like sensation. As if to ‘feel’ like, “If I don’t do something, I’m letting my time run out.”

Let’s be clear: other than my diabetes type II, which I’m taking pills for and feel genuinely fine … and a current issue with my leg that I’m going to see a doctor about in a few days … I’m in great health. No issues to worry about. The leg thing? That’s likely about a ‘lack of support’ thing when I worked at Pactiv (which is where it started) without proper time to heal. I’m still on my feet a lot. I probably need some better shoes/cushions. 

Last night I sent requests to join the following: Elks lodge, Toastmasters, Lions Club and Habitat for Humanity.

Why? Well, the Toastmasters is self evident. I need to be able to speak to people efficiently; with class and poise. I’m not confident of where I am at with my writing these days. Toastmasters will get me back in line to a standard that will help in a law career. Plus, it’s a start in being ‘social’ outside of online. Neither of which I’m very social. Even at work, I barely talk to anyone if I don’t have to.

Elks and Lions. Man clubs that I can’t grasp ‘why’ I would need them except that it’s a networking thing. If you go to their websites, they give long winded reasons of the things they do for communities. I’m 48 years old and have yet to have heard of anything of value that either organization has done except as a place for their loyal order of water-buffaloes to hang their hats and conduct secret handshakes.

HOWEVER, being a member of ‘anything’ has privileges and if I want to be an efficient lawyer, I should be a member of ‘things’. You fill out a request form and they send it to your local chapter of whichever club. They ask: ‘why do you want to join’ and I really don’t have a fucking clue. Part of that is my lack of social skills. If there was a room of two people, why would I want to be the third person in that room? I don’t want to know either of the people. I don’t want to talk about myself. I don’t need them.

HOWEVER, I have to play the game. A game I opened myself up to the moment I decided I would be a lawyer. It has nothing to do about ‘people’ as you would think. It’s about the ‘law’. I can easily not be emotional about the law.

Moving from one rank to another IS about people.

Take my place at Walmart, even as we speak. I am constantly getting my face and name in front of people in order to get from one pay grade to another. If I don’t speak up and talk to people, I could easily be forgotten in the produce section. I think of that every time I listen to people telling me about their 17, 25, 30 years at Walmart. Or Pactiv for that matter. 30 years at the factory. Sounds like a death sentence.

So, my reasons for joining a lodge is to ‘be seen’ and recognized for an unknown, unspecified social advancement. Period.

Yeah, I also deleted all of my ‘I hate Donald Trump’ rants on twitter to clean up my act. Facebook is a little difficult but I did purge about three years since 2008 of ‘questionable’ status stuff.

Habitat for Humanity is about offering up my time and body for a good cause. Part of that is willing volunteer. Another part is, again, something to put on paper to say I’ve done it and get social points when they see it on my resume.

Calling it what it is, I have to look good when I apply for law school or jobs just after the Bachelor’s Degree and after the law degree. Right now, my overall resume looks a mess; filled with variant jobs. Nothing that shows consistent leadership.

Yet.

The new resume I am building will strip all past jobs and focus on Walmart exclusively — incorporating my previous management and forthcoming management experience. It will also include my ties to Habitat for Humanities, Toastmasters and one of the service lodges. All I need to do is add the Bachelor’s in Criminal Justice. See? Just this paragraph alone sounds like I am a man of distinction.  That’s the goal when joining these man-clubs and take up physical space.

I don’t want to be there but I ‘have’ to for advancement. Also, being part of these things might help shake that ‘I’m wasting time’ feeling.